That's not how they work. Credit card processors have two end-point APIs: one that accepts real transactions and rejects test numbers and one that accepts test transactions and rejects real numbers. The system in the middle--the PSN store here--can act otherwise, but the credit card processor will not accept a fake number on a live system.
That's good to know. I don't mind Steam DRM. If it really doesn't have SecuROM then I'm going to get it tonight. I've wanted to play it for a while now. Thanks for the news.
I got educated on the DRM found in Mass Effect 1 and 2 and got to state my objection to SecuROM in the same thread. Go/.
For whatever reason, many Steam games still have SecuROM DRM anyhow. I refuse to install any product with SecuROM on my machine even if it apparently works fine.
I did not single out PayPal. This thread is about PayPal, so I'm keeping the discussion to them. There are other companies that have done similar things, and they are equally reprehensible.
You asked why people thought PayPal was evil. I offered my feelings as to their morality. They have frozen an account because the account holder encouraged, promoted, facilitated, or instructed someone else in illegal activity. They did not state who the "other" is or whether it was encouraged, promoted, facilitated, or instructed. I feel it's evil to freeze assets without a court order.
I would not deposit my money in such an organization, and if the organizations I do deposit my money into did something similar I would find a new depository.
It's not bias: they actually did freeze an account based on an AUP which I feel is overly broad an immoral. Courts decide legality. If it's solely up to the organization and the avenue of recourse is solely them, then I feel that's not somewhere people should put their money. I feel people should put their money in institutions where they will receive better legal protections.
As for the reading comprehension: you are right, I didn't reread last-weeks thread. PayPal did not accuse WikiLeaks of illegal activity, they accused an unnamed "other" that WikiLeaks had encouraged or promoted or facilitated or instructed. The point is the same: it was PayPal not a court that decided that the activity was illegal.
1. No court said that WikiLeaks broke the law. PayPal did. (Others did too, but only the courts should matter when it comes to freezing financials of "criminals.")
2. A dispute resolution department that *is* PayPal is not exactly something without a conflict of interest. A third, neutral party is the way to do dispute resolution.
I do not think there are any countries where people use Kelvin for everyday communication.
That said, the concept of a country being metricated is not so clear cut. Do we only include nation laws? Does a small village of aboriginal people using their ancient units of measure disqualify the country as being considered metric-using? If everything is metric but they still pour ounces of their national spirit because they have been for generations, does that disqualify them? Do we measure percentage of people using the SI unit for length, mass, temperature? What about only length and mass and their derivative units? The ISO have some answers to these questions, but I wanted to point out that a system of measure is not usually that black and white and many cultural aspects bleed into the discussion.
Metric PREfixes a power of ten to the unit. This doesn't just lengthen the term. It also puts the designation of WHAT KIND of unit you mean at the end, rather than the beginning. Bad enough that you have to work through the count before you get to the unit in "United States customary" (NOT Imperial, by the way) units. With metric you also have to get past the power of ten before you find out what you're talking about. Notice that, when abbreviating metric units, they shorten differently: A kiloMETER is a "K" or "klick", for instance, while a kiloGRAM is a "key". The tendencies of language and the centrally-planned systematization are at odds.
I understand your argument that how the units are named and scaled does not work well with how we use language. I am not sure how that's an argument for a system of units that also does not have any convenient language constructs.
Not just Americans (clang_jangle if you're reading this, USian is still not a term).
Some day it is my hope that usian or usonian catch on so we can forget about all the confusion cased by the term American. I probably won't happen, but it certainly won't happen if we don't try.
Not sure what you're experience is with other hiring processes, but the Google approach is one that I've seen used at every tech company I've interviewed for. Some of the specifics vary.
On one team, we had specialists in certain technical questions and problems and would try to get a mix in on the loop (tree data-structures, string manipulation, interfaces, what ever was apropos).
On another team interviewers would send feedback immediately after their segment and include notes on what they feel are areas to touch upon in future interviews. Kind of "he grokked the lattice data structure we use but struggled with some of the pointer arithmetic; I didn't have enough time to ask more pointer questions."
Another team there was an as-appropriate manager at the end of the loop. He was not related to the team that was interviewing but higher-up and could evaluate meta-company choices. "Well, he's not quite the right fit for this team, but I know of a team in a different division I think he might be perfect for."
Anyhow, my point is that having a phone screen to filter out the obvious unqualified candidates and then an interview loop of 5-8 or so hour-long technical interviews that try to determine if you are a capable problem solver (seeing the thought process on a whiteboard or talked-through is more indicative than if they remember the exact API or syntax for everything) is kind of an industry standard. Or at least in my neck of the woods.
The proof is in the agreement you make with Apple where you grant them permission to share this data with their "partners" (no specific corporations or people listed). They collect it, they log it, they tell you they share it. Maybe they don't send it now, maybe they do: the point is they intend to.
You may learn more if you do your own research but:
http://www.truecrypt.org/faq [quote]The ciphertext block size used by TrueCrypt is 16 bytes (i.e., 128 bits)[/quote]
https://www.dropbox.com/help/8 [quote]Before transferring a file, we compare the new file to the previous version and only send the piece of the file that changed. This is called a "binary diff" and works on any file type. Dropbox compresses files before transferring them as well. This way, you also never have to worry about Dropbox re-uploading a file or wasting bandwidth.[/quote]
The fact of the matter is that organizations like NPR care about putting those twitter links; hence twitter is relevant, like it or not. I wasn't making some sort of value judgement, only offering evidence that organizations that aren't exactly paragons of new media have taken enough notice to include twitter links.
I know people in 2011 who still have 32" CRTs and say that they can't see any reason they'd need anything else. These are even people who are heavy film and pop culture buffs. And not old, either. In their 30s. They're content with regular DVDs and with streaming netflix on standard def. They even play their XBOX 360 on them. It's kind of baffling, but I guess there must have been holdouts when color television came out, who insisted their black and white was more than anyone would need for a couple decades afterward.
I still use a 32" CRT and don't plan on any immediate upgrades. Maybe I can give you my perspective. For the sorts of media that requires a display that my wife and I enjoy the CRT suits us just fine. The vast majority--over 90%--are older films, low-budget films, talking-heads programming, concerts, operas either won't utilize or get minimal benefit from an HDTV. We don't watch them for the visuals except in rare exceptions. For visually stunning films we go to the theater two blocks over. For programs that are better with good audio we've invested in that. For computer games, I have a computer which has more titles I enjoy than any console.
For the time being, our money is better spent on traveling though when we finally do upgrade to an HDTV I'm sure we'll enjoy it.
Analog broadcast might be dead, by digital broadcast is not dead yet.
We still use a tube TV with an external digital tuner. The cost of cable to get the two shows we'd like to watch was too high to justify their package and everything else we watch is available over-the-air. There's even a bonus: the picture quality is much better than our digital cable was; fewer compression artifacts.
When NPR has twitter links on their stories I'm not sure one should consider twitter as only for "new media" weenies anymore. Like it or not, it's relevant today. I don't like it; I don't use it; but I'm not going to delude myself and pretend it is not relevant; it's relevant to many people.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not how they work. Credit card processors have two end-point APIs: one that accepts real transactions and rejects test numbers and one that accepts test transactions and rejects real numbers. The system in the middle--the PSN store here--can act otherwise, but the credit card processor will not accept a fake number on a live system.
That's good to know. I don't mind Steam DRM. If it really doesn't have SecuROM then I'm going to get it tonight. I've wanted to play it for a while now. Thanks for the news.
I got educated on the DRM found in Mass Effect 1 and 2 and got to state my objection to SecuROM in the same thread. Go /.
For whatever reason, many Steam games still have SecuROM DRM anyhow. I refuse to install any product with SecuROM on my machine even if it apparently works fine.
I did not single out PayPal. This thread is about PayPal, so I'm keeping the discussion to them. There are other companies that have done similar things, and they are equally reprehensible.
You asked why people thought PayPal was evil. I offered my feelings as to their morality. They have frozen an account because the account holder encouraged, promoted, facilitated, or instructed someone else in illegal activity. They did not state who the "other" is or whether it was encouraged, promoted, facilitated, or instructed. I feel it's evil to freeze assets without a court order.
I would not deposit my money in such an organization, and if the organizations I do deposit my money into did something similar I would find a new depository.
It's not bias: they actually did freeze an account based on an AUP which I feel is overly broad an immoral. Courts decide legality. If it's solely up to the organization and the avenue of recourse is solely them, then I feel that's not somewhere people should put their money. I feel people should put their money in institutions where they will receive better legal protections.
As for the reading comprehension: you are right, I didn't reread last-weeks thread. PayPal did not accuse WikiLeaks of illegal activity, they accused an unnamed "other" that WikiLeaks had encouraged or promoted or facilitated or instructed. The point is the same: it was PayPal not a court that decided that the activity was illegal.
I've said this perhaps 10 times:
1. No court said that WikiLeaks broke the law. PayPal did. (Others did too, but only the courts should matter when it comes to freezing financials of "criminals.")
2. A dispute resolution department that *is* PayPal is not exactly something without a conflict of interest. A third, neutral party is the way to do dispute resolution.
What are these reasons?
I do not think there are any countries where people use Kelvin for everyday communication.
That said, the concept of a country being metricated is not so clear cut. Do we only include nation laws? Does a small village of aboriginal people using their ancient units of measure disqualify the country as being considered metric-using? If everything is metric but they still pour ounces of their national spirit because they have been for generations, does that disqualify them? Do we measure percentage of people using the SI unit for length, mass, temperature? What about only length and mass and their derivative units? The ISO have some answers to these questions, but I wanted to point out that a system of measure is not usually that black and white and many cultural aspects bleed into the discussion.
Metric PREfixes a power of ten to the unit. This doesn't just lengthen the term. It also puts the designation of WHAT KIND of unit you mean at the end, rather than the beginning. Bad enough that you have to work through the count before you get to the unit in "United States customary" (NOT Imperial, by the way) units. With metric you also have to get past the power of ten before you find out what you're talking about. Notice that, when abbreviating metric units, they shorten differently: A kiloMETER is a "K" or "klick", for instance, while a kiloGRAM is a "key". The tendencies of language and the centrally-planned systematization are at odds.
I understand your argument that how the units are named and scaled does not work well with how we use language. I am not sure how that's an argument for a system of units that also does not have any convenient language constructs.
What's wrong with having a 30cm hoagie?
Not just Americans (clang_jangle if you're reading this, USian is still not a term).
Some day it is my hope that usian or usonian catch on so we can forget about all the confusion cased by the term American. I probably won't happen, but it certainly won't happen if we don't try.
10cm doesn't seem all that impressive.
Not sure what you're experience is with other hiring processes, but the Google approach is one that I've seen used at every tech company I've interviewed for. Some of the specifics vary.
On one team, we had specialists in certain technical questions and problems and would try to get a mix in on the loop (tree data-structures, string manipulation, interfaces, what ever was apropos).
On another team interviewers would send feedback immediately after their segment and include notes on what they feel are areas to touch upon in future interviews. Kind of "he grokked the lattice data structure we use but struggled with some of the pointer arithmetic; I didn't have enough time to ask more pointer questions."
Another team there was an as-appropriate manager at the end of the loop. He was not related to the team that was interviewing but higher-up and could evaluate meta-company choices. "Well, he's not quite the right fit for this team, but I know of a team in a different division I think he might be perfect for."
Anyhow, my point is that having a phone screen to filter out the obvious unqualified candidates and then an interview loop of 5-8 or so hour-long technical interviews that try to determine if you are a capable problem solver (seeing the thought process on a whiteboard or talked-through is more indicative than if they remember the exact API or syntax for everything) is kind of an industry standard. Or at least in my neck of the woods.
The proof is in the agreement you make with Apple where you grant them permission to share this data with their "partners" (no specific corporations or people listed). They collect it, they log it, they tell you they share it. Maybe they don't send it now, maybe they do: the point is they intend to.
You may learn more if you do your own research but:
http://www.truecrypt.org/faq
[quote]The ciphertext block size used by TrueCrypt is 16 bytes (i.e., 128 bits)[/quote]
https://www.dropbox.com/help/8
[quote]Before transferring a file, we compare the new file to the previous version and only send the piece of the file that changed. This is called a "binary diff" and works on any file type. Dropbox compresses files before transferring them as well. This way, you also never have to worry about Dropbox re-uploading a file or wasting bandwidth.[/quote]
It does let you choose though: privacy or convenience.
Come to think of it, that's a pretty common-place choice in life.
Or use an existing English construct: origin-story-fatigue story-fatigue.
Then we are in agreement. It's relevant but for completely silly reasons.
Wait, you're saying that they are evil monsters except for Windows, Office, and Xbox. That's 3/4 of their major products.
The fact of the matter is that organizations like NPR care about putting those twitter links; hence twitter is relevant, like it or not. I wasn't making some sort of value judgement, only offering evidence that organizations that aren't exactly paragons of new media have taken enough notice to include twitter links.
I know people in 2011 who still have 32" CRTs and say that they can't see any reason they'd need anything else. These are even people who are heavy film and pop culture buffs. And not old, either. In their 30s. They're content with regular DVDs and with streaming netflix on standard def. They even play their XBOX 360 on them. It's kind of baffling, but I guess there must have been holdouts when color television came out, who insisted their black and white was more than anyone would need for a couple decades afterward.
I still use a 32" CRT and don't plan on any immediate upgrades. Maybe I can give you my perspective. For the sorts of media that requires a display that my wife and I enjoy the CRT suits us just fine. The vast majority--over 90%--are older films, low-budget films, talking-heads programming, concerts, operas either won't utilize or get minimal benefit from an HDTV. We don't watch them for the visuals except in rare exceptions. For visually stunning films we go to the theater two blocks over. For programs that are better with good audio we've invested in that. For computer games, I have a computer which has more titles I enjoy than any console.
For the time being, our money is better spent on traveling though when we finally do upgrade to an HDTV I'm sure we'll enjoy it.
I wrote my congressman when the whole deal was being "debated" at the FCC. Now I just stick with radio. Far more entertaining.
Analog broadcast might be dead, by digital broadcast is not dead yet.
We still use a tube TV with an external digital tuner. The cost of cable to get the two shows we'd like to watch was too high to justify their package and everything else we watch is available over-the-air. There's even a bonus: the picture quality is much better than our digital cable was; fewer compression artifacts.
I think this world needs more advocates for peer-to-peer communication; hyphenated-name or not.
When NPR has twitter links on their stories I'm not sure one should consider twitter as only for "new media" weenies anymore. Like it or not, it's relevant today. I don't like it; I don't use it; but I'm not going to delude myself and pretend it is not relevant; it's relevant to many people.
The character limit certainly hinders long, responses.
Fixed that for you. Thinking thinks through works for short messages too. I'd argue that's when it's even more important.